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“The trail may be cold, but the stories are hot!”

By ivi blog Guest Contributor Dr. Rob Moore

For anyone with a personal and professional commitment to compete in Hollywood or Manhattan for upcoming stage and/or screen productions roles, it is always an advantage to have developed many performance-related skills. An actor or actress in waiting never knows when an opportunity will present itself and require one of his or her talents.

Odds for success are always improved when a performer can respond to a variety of casting calls. That is to say, if one cannot dance well, any film calling for that skill is out of reach. The same holds true for singing, playing a musical instrument, acrobatics and any other area that allows a performer to add versatility to the cast of a production.

For example, John Travolta comes from a stage family. All the members of his family were trained from an early age in dance, song and acting. Having developed all those skills, Travolta was ready for just about any role offered him, short of one that required he actually leap from the 20th floor of a burning building.

He was able to fill roles requiring expert modern dance movement, as in Saturday Night Fever and Staying Alive; entertain us with expert singing in Grease, and, of course, act well. Said differently, a casting director could not ask for much more of a single performer.

As a result, in head-to-head competition with other actors, casting directors understood that, if a script needed a re-write, or an unanticipated new skill was required, Travolta could answer the challenge without the need for the directors revisiting the casting process, which entails additional time and, in most instances, lots of money.

Having multi-skilled personnel “on the lot” also allows writers to add scenes to productions that make it much more alive for audiences. Multi-skilled performers allow writers to exercise their imagination to the fullest, rather than being limited to the “spoken word” in a medium demanding lots of visual and auditory stimuli as well.

As with a sports team, the more talented each segment of a production’s membership is, the more management can count on a final product that will translate into box office revenue. As we said earlier, it is not called “show business” for nothing.

What is true of John Travolta is also true of Madonna. She has shown in the past to be a great modern dancer, but Madonna also is an accomplished ballerina, guitarist and drummer. And, oh yes, she is able to add acting and singing skills to a cast as well.

Bruce Willis made many contacts via his skills, even though many of his particular talents were not directly related to performing in a film production. Willis was an excellent private investigator, bartender and security expert before hitting it big in film. Imagine how those skills might have allowed Willis to connect with many people in Hollywood! (If a star or director is grateful for a service performed by an individual, it is not unheard of for that gratitude to translate into screen opportunity.)

Clint Eastwood was a fireman and ragtime pianist; Steven Seagal, a martial arts coordinator and stunt person; Jean Claude Van Damme, a male ballet partner, martial artist and award winning body builder; and, Henry Fonda, a printer and sketch artist.

Whether you are Harrison Ford, an excellent set carpenter, Vin Diesel or Sylvester Stallone, both fine screenwriters, having diverse skills makes the star-to-be that much more valuable in the eyes of production directors.

The challenge is to know where those EYES are on any particular day.

And, that is where our next article will begin.

Knowing where the EYES are most likely to be fits the job description of managers, agents and casting professionals.

Join us next time when we look at each of these professions as they work for their client, the star-to-be.